14 July 2008

Of Memory Repression

llll ( lllllllllll Of Memory Repression…

A strange thing happened while we were visiting niksisst in the Valley Willamma. We were sitting out on her front deck one evening, sipping siksikimi with brandy, just chatting. Somehow we began discussing sta’aoiksi, a topic that is not at all unusual in conversation with niksisst, who has encountered many in her lifetime. Most recently, she had been hearing the pitter-patter of ferret feet on her wood floors, visitations from her friend pookaa who passed-on during misamsootaa. In fact, the first evening we arrived at ookoowa, I heard them too, ki knew exactly what the sound was, but decided to keep it to myself so as not to remind niksisst of her loss.

In any case, we’re talking about sta’aoiksi, ki piipiiaakii pitches me a lead by saying, “Ryan had an experience recently….” I smiled, trying to recall what she might be referring to, hoping that she’d continue in my stead. She did, but merely with another clue meant to trigger my memory. Aaniiwa, “It almost caused us to drive off the road.” Yes, I thought, there was something like this that happened recently. Only I couldn’t quite remember what it was. There was an awkward silence, as the aakiiksi waited for me to tell the story. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to speak, that I’d perhaps somehow forgotten, piipiiaakii pushed onward. “We were driving down University Boulevard at night, just over by our house. All the sudden Ryan jerked the wheel to one side. He said he’d seen a man run angrily from the sidewalk toward the driver-side window, then disappear.”

It was true. I remembered. There had been a night when we’d driven down University Boulevard, although for what purpose I haven’t a clue. And there had been a man who ran at my window. Once he disappeared, I recall having considered to myself that the man might be the sta’ao of someone who had died on that ridge in the famous battle between niitsitapikoaiksi ki sinaikoaiksi in 1870. Although his exact appearance was vague to me then ki now, I sensed that he was akaitapiwa. The whole incident happened very quickly, we moved on down the road, ki apparently I brushed it off.

Now, one would think that something like this – seeing a sta’ao - would leave a lasting impression. But that’s what I find so odd. Why had I forgotten about the incident? Why is it that I still can’t recall what we were doing, where we were going down University Boulevard that evening. It wasn’t very long ago, just a matter of weeks. In a way, this whole thing reminds me of experiences typical of many paapao’kaanistsi. I wake up, often not remembering what I’ve just dreamed. I go on with my morning ki something might trigger me to recall certain aspects. Yet there are always other aspects of the same paapao’kaanistsi I can never retrieve. Although I do use some memory techniques to capture what I can, there’s an extent to which I’ve become accustomed to this amnesia with my sleep life. Sometimes even the most interesting paapao’kaanistsi can lose clarity or evaporate completely upon waking. But I’ve never had this happen to me in just such a way when I was conscious. What does this mean? Ki the fact that I could gain recall again, but only once someone else relayed the experience back to me. Would this suggest that our paapao’kaanistsi are similarly retained, but that we just can’t access them because there’s nobody else, no witnesses, to offer us the keys?

Obsessing On Purpose

Like most living beings - human or otherwise - I have cultivated a number of behavioural routines and aesthetic predilections that bring structure, or perhaps a sense of security, to my everyday life. In some instances, these quirks and habits border on the embarrassingly obsessive-compulsive. For instance, at nookoowa, I routinely make sure that anything situated on tables or counters be set in an alignment parallel to the edges. Sometimes, nipiitaam or nitana will offset things purposely, just to watch me run around straightening them. On the other hand though, I prefer our tables and countertops to be absolutely empty except when in use, and all items that might otherwise be placed upon them to be neatly stowed away in closets, trunks, and cupboards. I also try to make sure that any like-type objects that happen to be stored on a shelf - such as books, video games, compact discs, statuettes, picture frames, what have you - are neatly aligned and arranged in some pleasing order. My bed must always be made, unless someone’s in it, and nothing beyond sheets, blankets, or pillows belongs on it. It bothers me when clothing is tossed on the floor, or draped anywhere other than on hangers in our closets. Furniture, in the form of couches, cushioned chairs, dining sets, etc. strike me as clutter, limiting the spaces that one would otherwise have available to conduct creative activities. I prefer to sit on the floor, with just a pillow or folded blanket for support. I don’t like any lighting except that which comes from naato’si, nor prolonged periods of electronic noise. The different foods on my plate cannot touch, unless we’re eating Mexican, in which case it must all be mixed together into a bean, cheese, and rice paste. And I don’t think sinks are places to keep dirty dishes, or sponges, or globs of fallen toothpaste… although they are for cleaning such things immediately. The list could go on, all these partialities that are so rarely realized to my satisfaction. The truth of the matter is, in the long run, most of my aesthetic habits bring me more irritation than comfort. Yet I continue to uphold them all the same.

One of my greatest obsessive-compulsive behaviours, a massive sink-hole of energy, and that which applies more than any other to the present project, is an overwhelming desire to document periods of transition in my life. I’ve been journaling since I was about twelve years old, using this practice as a surrogate companion of sorts, with whom to discuss the occasionally strange (and often mundane) changes I’m constantly attempting to make in my life, in whatever direction I happen to be exploring at the time. Over nearly three decades, I’ve experimented with a wide variety of media, from classic stationary and blank books, to audio notes, photography, film, sketching. I’ve written in both first and third person, I’ve tried to approach the practice as story telling, as ethnography, as documentary, as art. But my trouble is this… for me, the final product of my efforts is never good enough. I’m constantly shifting tactics and media. I’ve probably made some stationers fairly rich. In fact, any new idea at all can compel me to destroy prior work and start anew, because my sense is that a fresh journaling project is like an opportunity for the redefinition of self. It’s a personal renewal. A cleansing, a chance to make a vow and completely transform the narratives that guide one’s experiences. An old journal, on the other hand, one that no longer accurately reflects my sensibilities or interests in the present, is to me a blemish, an imperfection, a blatant reminder of the self I’ve already outgrown. Such past projects are like carelessly wrought sculptures, beyond repair. And so I must begin, again and again.

Now I know, some may say that for the artist it is the process that matters, not the product. And there are examples from around the world to demonstrate this claim. There are the Tibetan sculptures made from butter, which melt in the sun. The sacred sand-paintings of the Navajo, scooped-up and discarded at the close of their healing ceremonies. Origami cranes, floating down the rivers of Japan. There are all manner of ikitstakssiistsi to look toward as monuments to the significance of process over product. True. I don’t deny it. But these examples involve at least two aspects that my journals do not. First, they are almost always seen to some stage of human completion, each creative act having a very defined conclusion, the point at which they are left in sacrifice to the sacred beings, the ancestors, the future generations. Which brings up the second distinction they have from my journals – these creative acts are also highly spiritual, inaugurating, feeding, or renewing sacred relationships. And while my journaling practices have always nurtured, I’ve never really approached them as offerings to the forces that sustain my life. Rather, and perhaps sadly, I feel deep down that they have been little more than tools for fostering detachment, as if the immediate activities involved in my pursuits for growth and transformation are somehow not enough in themselves. And I’m aware that it is in large part my history of exposure to an immature and ego-centric global ethos that has conditioned me to such hollow practice.

There is another (and related) reason why I tend to discard imperfect or outdated journals, over-concern myself with the organization of items on my shelving systems, fret obsessively over household clutter, etc. It is because I have been enculturated in an aesthetics that defies nature by placing all like items together, and all unalike items apart. It’s a system partial to concrete categories, surface in its emphasis, allowing little room for metamorphoses, transfigurations, or interconnectivities. In fact, it is a way that fears these complexities and the potential loss of present form. A journal, by its very nature of recording a series of thoughts and life experiences, all of which are unalike except by means of their association to a single person in the midst of constant change, somehow simultaneously calls-to and troubles this aesthetics. As typically carried out, a journal is in essence just another means of imposing false order on the flow of life, both by objectifying experience and by organizing its representation into segments of a linear-time framework that is completely removed from the shifting cyclicality of the natural world. My fluent relationship with both kinds of awareness has, in a sense, rendered me bipolar. I strive for a certain level of systematicity, all the while knowing full well that such order reflects an impoverished approach to negotiating the human condition.

Perhaps what I’ve needed all along is a healthy recognition of both the limitations and potential functionalities of record-keeping practices, particularly in the traditions of aokstakio’p and aisinaakio’p… this, followed by an alterative adoption of those beneficial techniques and media from the established global culture, inwardly, in a manner that augments rather than re-shapes niitsitapia’pii. I am lucky, in this sense, to be already engaged in a learning process through iiyaohkimiipaitapiiyssin, which I’m sure will offer many insights along the way. But all the same, I know that to achieve my vision, to revitalize forms of niitsitapi record-keeping through my journaling practice, I will have to work much more closely with those constant resources I can trust - niitsi’powahsin, akaitapiitsinikssiistsi, ki nipaapao’kaanistsi. I will also need to develop a habit of respecting the advice of my own deeper intuition, and begin responding regularly to the voices of the sspommitapiiksi, ksaahkomitapiiksi, and soyiitapiiksi of kitawahsinnoon. My hope is that in blogging the present journal, Akayo’kaki A’pawaawahkaa, I can explore and perhaps realize this interest. And if nothing else, if the urge to renew strikes again, all I have to do is hit DELETE.